The Unrepentant

"Only the timid need a reason to join the fray. Battle ranking event The Unrepentant available! ★Let your blade drink until it's had its fill★"

- In-game description

The Unrepentant is a Ranked "battle tower" event available in December 2019. It features duels with Graff, in his first set of job classes.

This is another of the "vs" progressive tower events in the Tower of Trials. You must use either Graff jobs or Ultimate Heroes to fight, but you get a better bonus using Graff-only jobs and actions. (see Gameplay)

Event Details

 * Ranking Event duration: December 25 - 31, 2019
 * Event type: progressive Tower Battle

How to Participate

 * Select "The Unrepentant" from the Act 2 world map -- its own red spot.
 * This event is only accessible after a player clears the Runic Temple in Chapter 1

Story
Graff steps into the Tower of Trials. As with the others, he finds a Shadow of himself there. (courtesy of Moggy we recently found out!) The shadow notes the whole need to find a personal reason to fight, including the need to respect other people's reasons... and then scoffs at the whole thing. Why not just admit you like to fight? And what better place than the Tower, where you can fight forever? How far are you willing to go?

Gameplay
Players in this area must use a Graff job in both the primary and secondary decks to be allowed to climb the ladder. But there is a loophole - if you use an Ultimate Hero job card, you can set any job you like to it, Graff or not. The first selection screen will only show you the job sets that meet these requirements, or you'll get a denial message if you have none. Go set up your jobs!

However, the Ultimate Heroes tend to be more overpowering, so Graff jobs don't get directly used that much. In compensation, Graff gets an, which increases his stats by 40%! (but be aware that this buff is additive to / )
 * Using an Ultimate Hero -- or switching to one with Job Change Recast -- cancels the boon.
 * The counter will return when you switch back to the previous Graff job, but the counter is decreased.
 * Sub-attacks from a non-Graff Job decrease the counter.
 * When the counter reaches zero, the boon goes away, and cannot be brought back in this battle.

Play in this area works up a single chain of levels, from the beginning Abyss level up to the top Ragnarok level. As you work your way up the tower, the battles at each level will get progressively harder.

Each area has three battles:
 * 1) The first one is against fodder fiends (Dusts, Grudges, Dryads).
 * 2) The second one is against an Act 2 boss fiend.
 * 3) The third features a confrontation with Graff in one of one of his Job outfits, decked with recent Ability Cards. These can include Supreme Cards, and the power ramps up fairly quickly.

Every few turns Graff will switch from an Attacker role to a Defender role, and a few turns later, back again. When he does, his elemental affinity will shift, and he will switch to a different set of Abilities. (just like your own Job Change Recast)

Status bar
Graff has a set of orb icons on his status bar, indicating how many elemental orbs he has. As he attacks, these will fill up, and he will use them to cast abilities at you. Hitting him with opposite element attacks will reduce the number of orbs he has.

His status bar also shows an. When this fills to 100, Graff will hit you with the same Ultimate Ability you'd expect for that Job. You can delay this by hitting him with non-elemental attacks while he's Broken, and during your own Mobius Zone periods.

In higher battles, the bar shows a icon, with his current Cross-Counter stack. Each time you hit him, this counter will go up, making his next attack more powerful!
 * physical hits (taps) increase it by 1.
 * Ability hits increase it by 3.
 * the counter does not increase while he's Broken.

Finally, Graff gets a icon on the end of his status bar. When this reaches zero, Graff will use a super-powerful attack that will kill you. Make sure to defeat him before this hits!

Event Map
"Some fight for friends and family. Some fight for justice. Others fight... to fight. Those welcome the new world order, in which the thrill of battle is its own reward."

- World Map description

The region is the standard Tower of Trials -- one path with a staircase, leading up to the top at the 50th "Ragnarok" level. You cannot return to previous levels once they've been beaten.

After completing the Highest Level: Ragnarok, you enter the "Phantasmic Coil" areas. This is a set of 5 areas that repeat in an infinite loop, also with an increasing difficulty with each area finished. On these levels, there is no fifth Rental Card allowed, and if you lose, you cannot use s to continue. A Prize of x5 is handed out for each loop of 5 completed.

The Phantasmic Loop includes shortcuts. These allow the better players to skip ahead to the high-difficulty loops without needing to slog through the lower-level stuff. Completing a shortcut awards the s that would have been earned by going through those loops manually. Upon finishing the area, you're transported to The Phantasm as your starting point into the Phantasmic Loop. This is an irreversible jump -- once you complete one of the three initial areas, you're stuck on the Phantasmic Loop with that many "completions".
 * Novice starts you at Loop 1 (11 kills). No shortcut, no award.
 * Adept starts you at Loop 6 (31 kills), and x25
 * Master starts you at Loop 21 (106 kills), and x100

There are 15 areas in total, including the Phantasmic Coil, the Starting Area, and the shortcuts. There are 5 treasure chests. Since the treasure chest in the Phantasmic Coil regenerates on each pass, the region technically cannot be Cleared.

Phantasmic Coil
The five levels after Ragnarok are set in an infinite loop, with a prize on the completion of the fifth area on each loop. Players cannot use s to continue the battle if they lose, and the fifth "rental" card is not available.

The skirmishes here have a pre-set collection of fiends, but after the 36th and 66th kill (?) they will change to other fiends. The third skirmish always remains as described.

Ranking Rewards
The game awards the Épéiste job card to you at the beginning of the contest, maxed out, if you have not already obtained it from other sources. This guarantees that all players can participate, regardless of experience or Job collection.

Because of the holidays, participation is likely to be low, so anyone who completes all of the normal levels should make it within the top 10,000 players. The top 2,000 players will get s as a reward. These are used to open special high-end rewards in the Rift.

Notable Enemies

 * Épéiste
 * Gardien
 * Toreador
 * Vagabond
 * Sorceress's Knight
 * Chevalier Noir

Reference

 * Mobius Final Fantasy News Page Announcement
 * The Unrepentant superthread on Reddit
 * Dark Cloud's compilation of the videos from the event